Looking for the best restaurants in Long Beach? This diverse coastal city south of LA has a laid-back, eclectic, and genuinely underrated food scene. This local food guide covers what the Long Beach dining scene is known for, the best neighborhoods to eat in, signature dishes to try, and how to find where locals actually eat right now.

What Long Beach’s food scene is known for

Long Beach’s scene is diverse and unpretentious — a strong Cambodian community (home to “Cambodia Town,” the largest outside Cambodia) gives it a food identity all its own, alongside excellent Mexican, seafood, a growing craft-beer culture, and walkable, independent-leaning restaurant districts.

Best neighborhoods for dining in Long Beach

Downtown and the East Village Arts District offer walkable, eclectic dining; Belmont Shore (2nd Street) is a beloved beachside restaurant-and-bar strip; Retro Row (4th Street) has trendy independents; and Cambodia Town along Anaheim Street is a destination for authentic Cambodian food. For more on each area, see our guide to the best neighborhoods in Long Beach.

Signature dishes & cuisines to try in Long Beach

Come for Cambodian food (a Long Beach specialty), fresh seafood, excellent Mexican, and a laid-back beach-city mix of independents and craft breweries.

What to know about eating out in Long Beach

Belmont Shore and downtown are walkable; elsewhere plan to drive. Cambodia Town is the standout for adventurous eaters. The scene is casual and value-friendly.

Where Long Beach locals actually eat

Menus, hours, and favorites change constantly — the freshest, most honest picks come from people who eat here every week. On Neighborhood Nurturers’ Long Beach community, real Long Beach neighbors share the spots they genuinely love (and the overhyped ones to skip). Planning a visit or a night out? See our guide to the best things to do in Long Beach too. Join your Long Beach neighbors free and get real local restaurant recommendations →

Where this fits in Long Beach

The strongest restaurants here are tied to their neighborhoods, and locals tend to have strong, specific opinions. The picks in this guide make the most sense once you know how Long Beach is laid out. Belmont Shore and Bluff Park sit at the center of where locals actually spend their time, so planning a memorable meal around one of them rarely goes wrong. When you want something calmer, the El Dorado Nature Center pulls you away from the busiest blocks, and the Naples canals is the kind of spot regulars mention but visitors miss. Anchor your plan to one of those and the rest of the day in Long Beach tends to fall into place.

More Long Beach guides

Long Beach rewards people who dig a little deeper. These related guides map the same neighborhoods from different starting points: Brunch in Long Beach, Bars & nightlife in Long Beach, Date ideas in Long Beach — enough to plan a whole day or two.

Ask a Long Beach neighbor

The best tips never make the guidebooks — they come from neighbors who know which spot is worth it this week. That is what the Long Beach community on Neighborhood Nurturers is for. Ask Long Beach locals what they would do, or join free and get honest answers from people who actually know Long Beach.

Long Beach Restaurants by District

Long Beach is too spread out to have a single restaurant row. What it has instead is five or six distinct food districts, each with a different character, and knowing which one you want is most of the work. Here is the honest breakdown of where to eat in Long Beach, CA, district by district, with what each one is genuinely good at.

Belmont Shore and 2nd Street

The densest restaurant corridor in the city: roughly fifteen blocks of 2nd Street from Livingston Drive to Bay Shore Avenue, more than 150 businesses, and the beach at the end of it. Domenico’s Belmont Shore at 5339 E 2nd Street has been open since 1954, making it Long Beach’s oldest restaurant and one of the first places in California to serve pizza at all. It holds roughly 4.6 stars across more than 2,000 reviews, and the reliable orders are the ground sausage and ground pepperoni pizzas and the house salad with creamy garlic dressing.

Nick’s on 2nd at 4901 E 2nd Street is the upscale-casual end, with reviewers consistently naming the steaks, the fried deviled eggs and a butter cake dessert. L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele at 4621 E 2nd Street brought the Naples original to Long Beach and opens unusually early at 6:45am. Open Sesame, Lebanese and open since 1999 at 5215 E 2nd Street, runs about 4.5 stars on the strength of its shawarma and garlic sauce. Just past the Naples bridge, The Naples Rib Company at 5800 E 2nd Street is the barbecue benchmark at about 4.4 stars over roughly 1,600 reviews. Our full Belmont Shore 2nd Street guide covers the corridor in detail, including parking.

Worth correcting: Michael’s on Naples, long the special-occasion Italian restaurant at the Naples end of 2nd Street, has closed, despite still appearing in older roundups.

Cambodia Town, on Anaheim Street

This is the most culturally significant food district in Long Beach and the one most visitors miss entirely. Cambodia Town runs along Anaheim Street between Atlantic and Junipero avenues, and Long Beach holds the largest concentration of Cambodians of any city outside Southeast Asia. The area also carries the names Little Phnom Penh and Little Cambodia.

Phnom Penh Noodle Shack at 1644 Cherry Avenue is the landmark, open for around forty years, and while the menu runs from rice porridge to stir fry, the noodle dishes and soups are what people return for. Monorom Cambodian Restaurant at 2150 E Anaheim Street has built a strong reputation for classic dishes done properly, with roasted meats, lemongrass chicken, and prahok ktis, a ground-pork curry made with coconut milk. Battambong BBQ is the modern outlier, where chef Chad Phuong crosses Texas-style barbecue with Cambodian flavors: brisket carrying lemongrass, and twako, a Cambodian sausage made with fermented rice. Sophy’s is the other name that comes up repeatedly in local lists.

Alongside the restaurants, the corridor holds Khmer temples, jewelry and clothing shops, donut shops and community service centers. If you eat one meal in Long Beach that you could not eat anywhere else, it should be here.

Bixby Knolls, on Atlantic Avenue

Atlantic Avenue is the spine of Bixby Knolls, and the neighborhood is known even more for beer than for food. It has the highest concentration of breweries in Long Beach, enough that locals call it “Brewery Knolls”, with beer festivals and a double-decker bus that rotates between the beer spots.

Rasselbock Kitchen and Beer Garden at 4020 Atlantic Avenue carries more than 35 German and Belgian beers alongside schnitzel, Bavarian pretzels and elk sausage. Beachwood Brewing Bixby Knolls has been brewing since 2011 and pours over 30 craft beers on tap. Knolls Restaurant at 4354 Atlantic Avenue opened in April 2015 and keeps 24 beers on tap. The neighborhood’s First Fridays is a monthly evening event when businesses along Atlantic stay open late with live bands and street booths.

Retro Row, on 4th Street

Retro Row is three blocks of 4th Street between Cherry and Junipero avenues, built around vintage shops but with a genuine food scene attached. The New York Times travel section once described it as the place to find the soul of Long Beach.

Eat at Little Coyote for pizza, The Social List for European-influenced tavern food, or Oh La Vache for cheese. Portfolio Coffeehouse has anchored the street for more than two decades. The strip also holds The Art Theatre, the oldest operating single-screen cinema in Long Beach, originally opened in 1924, plus vintage clothing at La Bomba and books at Bel Canto Books. It is the best district in the city for making an afternoon of shopping and eating together.

Downtown, the Waterfront and Shoreline Village

Downtown covers the convention-and-waterfront end of the city. Ammatoli at 285 E 3rd Street, established in 2018, is the standout: Levantine Mediterranean food that reviewers single out for the beet hummus and fresh-baked pita, open Monday and Tuesday 11am to 7pm and Wednesday through Sunday 11am to 9pm. The 908 draws praise for small plates and a second-floor patio. Shoreline Village itself is the waterfront boardwalk stretch, better for the setting and the view across to the Queen Mary than for any single restaurant.

Italian Restaurants in Long Beach, CA

Beyond Domenico’s and L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele in Belmont Shore, the names that recur across local rankings and review aggregators are La Parolaccia Osteria, known for a loud, robust, authentically Italian room; Due Fiori; Ellie’s, which does a modern take on southern Italian with handmade pasta; and L’Opera, which has been running for over thirty years and gets consistent marks for seafood. Buono’s Pizzeria is the reliable value option and Cafe Gazelle the neighborhood favorite. Note these are review-consensus picks rather than a single definitive ranking, and the ordering shifts month to month.

Mexican Restaurants and Tacos in Long Beach

Mexican food in Long Beach splits between sit-down restaurants and taquerias, and both are strong. On the restaurant side, Viaje is the upscale pick, locally owned and running about 4.6 stars across 548 reviews. Panxa Cocina, El Barrio Cantina, Los Compadres, Buen Provecho and Ancestros all appear repeatedly on local best-of lists. El Jefe Mexican Grill carries an unusually high 4.8 rating over 240 reviews.

For tacos specifically, La Taqueria Brand built its following on neighborhood-style street tacos, birria and breakfast burritos, and expanded into SteelCraft Long Beach in 2024. Hole Mole is the name locals raise for crispy tacos dorados. In Belmont Shore, Panama Joe’s Cantina at 5100 E 2nd Street is the loud, late, larger-table option rather than a destination for the food itself.

Practical Notes on Eating Out in Long Beach

A few things that save time. Parking is the main variable: in Belmont Shore, meters run $3.00 per hour from 10:00am to 7:00pm and accept cards, and side streets and public lots beat circling 2nd Street. Cambodia Town and Bixby Knolls are both far easier to park in. Reservations matter at Nick’s, the Naples Rib Company and the Belmont Shore Italian restaurants on weekend evenings, and matter very little in Cambodia Town, where walking in is normal.

Timing: the Naples Rib Company opens at 4:00pm on weekdays and noon at weekends; L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele opens at 6:45am, which makes it one of the earliest options in the city. Annual dates: Long Beach Food Scene Week ran July 31 to August 9 in 2026 with more than 100 participating restaurants, and is the best week of the year to try somewhere new at a fixed price.

For related guides, see brunch in Long Beach, Long Beach bars, Long Beach coffee shops, and the district guides for Belmont Shore and Naples Island.

Frequently asked questions

What food is Long Beach known for?

A one-of-a-kind Cambodian food scene (Cambodia Town), plus excellent Mexican, fresh seafood, and a laid-back mix of independents and craft breweries.

Where is the best food in Long Beach?

Belmont Shore’s 2nd Street for beachside dining, downtown and the East Village for eclectic spots, and Cambodia Town on Anaheim Street for authentic Cambodian food.

Where do locals eat in Long Beach?

Locals prize Cambodia Town, neighborhood taquerias, and Retro Row independents — Long Beach neighbors share their current picks in our community.